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At Sat, 16 Feb 2013 06:42:04 -0800,
Karen Coyle wrote:
> 
> gitHub may have excellent startup documentation, but that startup 
> documentation describes git in programming terms mainly using *nx 
> commands. If you have never had to use a version control system (e.g. if 
> you do not write code, especially in a shared environment), "clone" 
> "push" "pull" are very poorly described. The documentation is all in 
> terms of *nx commands. Honestly, anything where this is in the 
> documentation:
> 
> On Windows systems, Git looks for the |.gitconfig| file in the |$HOME| 
> directory (|%USERPROFILE%| in Windows’ environment), which is 
> |C:\Documents and Settings\$USER| or |C:\Users\$USER| for most people, 
> depending on version (|$USER| is |%USERNAME%| in Windows’ environment).
> 
> is not going to work for anyone who doesn't work in Windows at the 
> command line.
> 
> No, git is NOT for non-coders.

For what it’s worth, this programmer finds git’s interface pretty
terrible. I prefer mercurial (hg), but I don’t know if it’s any better
for people who aren’t familar with a command line.

  http://mercurial.selenic.com/guide/

(As a general rule, for every programmer who prefers tool A, and says
that everybody should use it, there’s a programmer who disparages tool
A, and advocates tool B. So take what we say with a grain of salt!)

(And as a further aside, there’s plenty to dislike about github as
well, from it’s person-centric view of projects (rather than
team-centric) to its unfortunate centralizing of so much free/open
source software on one platform.)

best, Erik